Weekly Daf #4

Bava Kama 9 - 15 - Issue #421 - 27 Adar 5754 / 4 - 10 March
1994

Equal Rights, Equal Responsibility

"... a man or woman who shall commit any human
sin" (Bamidbar 5:6) - the Torah equated woman with man in
regard to requiring atonement for sin.

Rabbi Yehuda in the name of Rav; The Academy of
Rabbi Yishmael

"These are the laws which you shall place before
them" (Shmos 21:1) - the Torah equated woman with man in
regard to all monetary laws.

Academy of Rabbi Elazar

"... and if it (the ox who is an inveterate
gorer) will kill a man or a woman, the ox must be stoned to death
and its owner be required to pay indemnity" - the Torah equated
woman with man in regard to responsibility for their deaths.

Academy of Chizkiah; Rabbi Yossi Haglili

All three of these equations are necessary. Had
only the first been written we might have limited equality to
this category alone because the Torah wished to give a woman equal
opportunity to achieve atonement for sin, while in regard to monetary
laws we might have assumed that they are limited to man because
commerce is principally his area. Had only the second equation
been made we might have assumed that she was given equality in
regard to monetary laws in order to allow her equal opportunity
for earning a livelihood (since merchants would avoid her if she
was not subject to these laws). But in regard to atonement we
might have thought that only man who is obligated in all mitzvos
requires atonement.

Had both of these equations appeared we might still
have limited equality to them alone because of the need for equal
opportunity for atonement and livelihood. In regard to the victim
of a goring ox, however, we might have assumed that the indemnity
required as an atonement for negligence in guarding the murderous
ox is not because of responsibility for loss of life (for which
there is no monetary atonement), but because such negligence curtails
human potential for fulfilling all the mitzvos, and hence limited
to man. On the other hand, had this last equation alone appeared
we might have interpreted the indemnity atonement as relating
to the loss of life and therefore equally applicable to both man
and woman, a consideration not present in the previous two categories.

The Torah therefore spells out all three cases to
equate woman with man in regard to all of these categories of
responsibility and value.

Bava Kama 15a

Doing a Mitzvah in Style

Rabbi Zeira ruled that a Jew must be prepared to
spend a third more in order to fulfill a mitzvah with greater
dignity.

In Eretz Israel they quoted Rabbi Zeira as adding
that the heavenly reward for glorifying a mitzvah by paying up
to a third more is only bestowed in the hereafter while the reward
for spending even more than a third for this purpose already provides
dividends during one's lifetime.

Bava Kama 9b

If one has a choice of buying two Sifrei Torah
(Torah Scrolls) and one has a more beautiful script than the
other, he should purchase the nicer one even if it costs up to
a third more than the other because our Sages taught us, on the
basis of the passage (Shmos 15:2) "this is my G-d and I shall
glorify Him", that we must fulfill His commandments in the
most glorious fashion - through a beautiful Sefer Torah,
a beautiful lulav, a beautiful talis and tzitzis.